PERISCOPE

--Steve Friess

Film: Grasping At Reality

Gunner palace," an intimate portrait of the U.S. soldiers serving in the Second Batallion, Third Field Artillery in Baghdad, defies expectations. There are sights in Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's eye-opening documentary that will confirm and confound both the American right and left. Here are American boys, some fresh out of high school, trained to fight but suddenly put in the position of social workers: cradling babies, assisting at town meetings, tending the wounded. But who is friend and who is foe? Some local children follow the soldiers worshipfully. At night, adults throw stones at them as they patrol the streets.

What gives the film an extra touch of surrealism is that the soldiers are stationed in the bombed-out palace of Saddam's playboy son Uday. It's a bizarre oasis in the midst of chaos, complete with putting green, a circular bed in Uday's love shack and a swimming pool. Tucker narrates his documentary, but for the most part lets the soldiers speak for themselves.

"Gunner Palace" isn't a particulary violent movie. But every moment is fraught with the potential for violence. "For y'all this is just a show," says Spc. Richmond Shaw, "but we live in this movie." The tricky part is, it's not one he's seen before--and he can't guess the ending.

--David Ansen